


Insufficient Interfaces

by sistabro



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Gen, Robo!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-20
Updated: 2012-03-20
Packaged: 2017-11-02 06:38:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sistabro/pseuds/sistabro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><strong>Summary/Prompt:</strong> Sam, Dean, Castiel, Android Resurrections.<br/>Angels can retrieve souls from heaven and hell, but they can't remake bodies. Not out of flesh and blood, anyway. Castiel tried his best to mimic human physiology, but he got a few things wrong. Android Sam or Dean, please.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Insufficient Interfaces

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the [INAUGURAL COMMENTMEME PARTY](http://scifi-spn.livejournal.com/773.html) for [scifi-spn.livejournal.com](http://scifi-spn.livejournal.com).

There's a heaviness to Dean's movements now that never lets Sam forget. It's nothing obvious--Cas was very careful to avoid any obvious tells--but Sam has been coveting Dean's grace his whole life. It's like a needle under his fingernail every time Dean takes a step with too much gravity behind it.

Sam misses those first few moments of ignorance, when the impossibility of Dean before him loomed so large it shorted out everything else. For five glorious minutes, Sam thought he had his brother back. He wasn't alone, Dean wasn't in Hell. Even now, tainted with the knowledge of what he was really hugging, it is his most joyous memory.

Early on, when Sam still had trouble going to sleep with Dean continually up and about, he held onto those first few minutes of their reunion like a talisman. _Of course he's different,_ Sam would tell himself, trying to quell the itch of unease so he could sleep. _He's a fucking robot, it'd be weird if he wasn't different. But we connected then, after I stopped trying to kill him. I felt it. I_ did _. I just need to get used to him now. Give him time to adjust. Things will get better, I just need to be patient._

Sam knows better now. Things only get worse. 

They talk more now; Sam can't bear to look Dean in the eyes anymore and something had to pick up the slack for everything they used to say with a glance. But it's all function, no substance, like everything between them, less. They dance around each other like strangers, except strangers couldn't hurt each other like this, twist the knife with every carefully maintained centimeter of distance. Even as he is now, Dean can read Sam like a book, remembers as well as Sam does how they used to be. He's still Dean enough that Sam can tell he's hurt and unhappy, too. But Sam can't keep himself from pulling away in muted horror whenever Dean reaches out, can't make himself meet the moist, glassy things that are supposed to pass for Dean's eyes.

Cas, of course, is oblivious, expects them to be _grateful_ of all things. He's so proud of his cleverness, of how he broke all the rules, sneaking into the future to order up a vessel for Dean's soul. Ensured that every detail is correct down to the freckle. But the vaguely creepy perfection only goes surface deep. Inside are wires and circuits and technology that, in other circumstances, would amaze and awe. Sam can barely stand to touch his phone anymore and Dean does all the research now, the laptop firmly in his domain.

It's not surprising that Cas doesn't understand; he suffers from the same problem, gives off the same sort of grating wrongness. The interface is insufficient. 

There may be a soul locked inside the machine that looks like his brother, but a diet of nothing but ones and zeros would make anyone's spirit anemic. Love is as much a biochemical reaction as a mental one. Compassion arrived at via a logic circuit will always be cold. Sam isn't even sure Dean's memories of emotions can be properly retrieved, if love and anger and pain are just a corrupted data stream, background static against a home movie of their lives narrated by a dry interior monologue of thoughts.

Sam's been watching Dean die by inches for months, the constant scraping against the sharp edges of absolute logic shredding what vestiges of humanity Cas managed to cram into the databanks. Now there is just this thing with his brother's memories and his brother's face. Hell was better than this, probably for both of them. And when Michael comes and Dean says yes, the only thing Sam feels is relief.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and concrit are, as always, adored


End file.
